5 reasons why Arthur Pendragon hates Christmas
by My Idle Hand
Summary: and 5 reasons why Arthur Pendragon decided that with Merlin, Christmas was not so awful after all. Completely random. It's my attempt to write humor and friendship. No spoilers from any seasons but it's set somewhere before the end of series 3.


**Title :** 5 reasons why Arthur Pendragon hates Christmas

**Rating **: K

**Gender :** Humor and friendship. Not a pre-slash, but can be read that way.

**Word count :** A little over 1500 words.

**Status : **Complete

**Spoilers :** None.

**BETA :** goodythreeshoes, thank you so much dear :)

**Disclamer :** If they were mine, the knights would be in every episode, especially Leon and Gawain (and his name would be spelled like that and not as Gwaine). Since obviously that's not the case, this story and the characters in it are not mine.

**AN:** So no, I'm not dead, I know I haven't published anything in a while but I just couldn't find any inspiration. And right now I'm obsessed with reading all I can find about both Merlin and Primeval (especially Leon and Becker). This fic was written for a Christmas challenge on a great French Merlin forum. The only condition was to write something about Christmas in Camelot under 1500 words. This is my version of it. I'm not English and this story was first written in French (and was under 1500 words but I changed a few things while translating). I'm sorry if my English is a bit off sometimes but I think you will still understand this easily enough. If something sounds really weird, don't hesitate to send me a PM to point it out. The characters may be a bit OOC but it's for humorous purposes only. :)

There was a time when I would never have written something like this because I hate Christmas (and fluff). I'm not sure where this story came from but I had fun writing it. *sigh* This fandom would make me do anything.

I'll shut up now and let you read.

I hope you will enjoy this :)

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5 reasons why Arthur Pendragon hates Christmas :

**1****)** For Christmas throughout the past three years, the King had ordered Arthur to dress up as Father Christmas to give away bread and fruit to all the children in town. Arthur had to wear a huge green and brown costume which made him look like Geoffrey of Monmouth (and if anyone had ever asked him his opinion, Arthur would have pointed out that the other man was definitely better equiped to play Father Christmas than him...) The other knights always laugh for days behind his back. Arthur hates his costume.

**2****)** Last year, Uther ordered Arthur to grow a beard for three months so that his costume would look better. It was a disaster and Morgana still laughs about it. This year, the king just asked the Royal Tailor to make one and it was atrociously itching. Arthur was sure that it was infested with fleas.

**3****)** Uther always wants to do better than anyone else so he invited all his allies to attend a big feast on Christmas Eve. Arthur is almost certain that King Olaf is amongst the guests, and Vivian is absolutely not someone that Arthur is looking forward to seeing again. Two days ago he had received another one of her passionate letters and Merlin had made a strange remark that Arthur really hadn't got . He was almost certain that his servant had said something like "still under the spell" and "need to do something". Arthur is sure that something is going to go wrong and he doesn't want to fight with Olaf again. It's way too cold outside.

**4**) This year, Uther had made a new rule. Everyone was given the name of another guest and had to find a gift for them. Of course Arthur had to find a gift for Morgana and he had no idea what to give to somebody who already had everything. With his luck, Arthur is pretty sure that Vivian is going to end up as his "secret santa."

**5****)** As a Christmas gift, Morgana had convinced the King to give a day off to half the servants the day after Christmas and the other half, two days later. Of course Merlin being Merlin, had asked for the entire week off instead of a day, to go see his mother. Arthur can never say no to Merlin though, even if he wants him to stay.

So three days before the party, in the late afternoon, he entered his room with a complete lack of Christmas spirit.

Arthur's shock was violent.

It took his brain thirty long seconds to process what it was seeing.

Merlin was wearing some red and green clothes that Arthur had never seen before and was standing right in the middle of the room... that he had completely redecorated. What suprised Arthur the most was that it must have taken him hours, and Merlin was known to have no sense of organization, planning or cleaning and least of all any decorative skills. So why had he bothered with all this?

A big (beautifully decorated) Christmas tree was standing in a corner near the window. A holly wreath was attached to the door behind Arthur and many strings made of holly and fir were decorating the chimney, his bed, his wardrobe and various other pieces of furniture. Arthur opened his eyes wide when Merlin pronounced some weird words in a language that Arthur still couldn't understand and suddenly, little snowflakes started to fall from the ceiling. Small yellow lights lit up on the ceiling and on the Christmas tree as well.

"I know you don't like it when I use my magic for things like this but I thought you would forgive me just this once."

"Merlin, it's... incredible!"

"Merry Christmas!"

"Merry Christmas to you too." Arthur answered with a little smile on his lips, touched by the intention, even if _he_ had no intention to tell Merlin.

"I have another surprise for you!"

"It's always scary when you say that. Because the last real surprise you revealed was when you told me about your magic."

"It was an accident," Merlin protested.

"Yes, well, killing a fairy in front of me and saying " surprise " when I asked you what was going on is not "an accident", it's madness! I could have killed you, you know."

"Yes, but my mind went a little blank right then and I couldn't find anything else to say."

"Yeah, can't say I am surprised by that."

"Do you want your surprise or not?" Merlin asked, a little annoyed by the implication that Arthur had just made.

"Yes!"

"I know you don't really like Christmas for four main reasons that you keep pondering about..."

(Arthur had not mentioned to Merlin that he hated the fact that his servant would be gone for a whole week).

"I do not ponder!"

"Of course you do." Merlin answered back with the informal tone he always used. Even if he was not supposed to address Arthur like that it never really bothered the prince, quite the opposite in fact.

"So I made a 'battle plan' for you. It should cheer you up and give you a bit of Christmas spirit. I'm sure you will love Christmas after this!"

"I get that you already do."

"Christmas was always something special in the Ealdor."

"So, a battle plan? "

"Yes, I'm battling against everything that makes you hate Christmas!" Merlin seemed really proud with his idea. Arthur raised an eyebrow, perplexed.

"I think I need more detail."

Arthur was a bit skeptical but he was so bored at that moment that he could have done with anything.

And after Merlin clarified everything, Arthur decided that it was not such a bad plan. A bit crazy- but it was Merlin's idea after all.

5 reasons why Arthur Pendragon decided that with Merlin, Christmas was not so awful after all :

**1****)** Since Uther had decided to be generous for Christmas, Arthur, on Merlin's advice, had thought that bread and fruit were not enough and a gold coin (from Uther's personal safe) would be more appropriate. Uther would surely love the idea...

**2****)** Arthur had also decided that the rest of the Knights should participate to the gold distribution too. Since there was no reason why Arthur had to be the only one to dress up for Christmas, he had ordered some green costumes to be made by the Royal Tailor. Three of them with special features which included hats with bells for Leon, Geraint and Bedivere. Just because_ nobody_ laughed behind Arthur's back.

**3****)** The poor Vivian slept for the entire party. You see, Merlin had accidentally dosed Vivian's drink with a powerful and incurable sleeping potion (who only wore off three days later). Amazing what you can find in Gaius' cabinet.

("I'm really sorry King Olaf, my servant is so clumsy! I will take care of his punishment myself. Really, I'm so sorry my lord," was Arthur's answer after the incident. He tried to hide the little grin on his face but it had fooled no one, especially not Uther who sent him a dark glare that should have killed Arthur instantly.)

**4****)** Since Morgana was a girl and Merlin was not very imaginative sometimes, especially when it came to girls, he thought that a nice dress would be a perfect gift from Arthur. The fleas as an additional surprise had been entirely Arthur's idea. ("She made fun of my beard Merlin, my beard!")

On Christmas day, Morgana's screams woke Arthur up even though her chambers were one floor up. In less than 3 minutes he was completely dressed, including his sword and his coat, (Merlin would have been proud,) and he was ready to go. He rushed out of his bedroom just when Morgana appeared in the end of the corridor, screaming some more. Merlin entered the corridor from the other end, carrying the Prince's breakfast on a tray. Arthur ran toward him, grabbed Merlin by the wrist and pulled the young man after him. (In the process, Merlin dropped the tray which made a huge banging noise when it hit the floor, surely waking up everybody else in the vicinity).

"Arthur, come back here immediately!" Morgana screamed from the other end of the corridor.

"What did you do this time?" Merlin asked.

"I think I will go with you to the Ealdor after all. I promised your mum I would come back and I'm pretty sure you will need protection on the road!" Arthur answered him with a huge smile on his lips, still running toward the Castle entrance and still pulling Merlin after him.

"ARTHUR!" Morgana yelled while scratching frantically.

"Yeah, sure. I'm the one who's going to need protection!" Merlin answered back with a laugh.

**5****)** That is how Arthur and Merlin escaped with no provisions, water or even a bag and ended up on Hunith's door a few days later. She was a little surprised to see the two boys since she was only expecting Merlin, but she was always pleased to see the prince anyway. Arthur decided that Christmas could be fun after all and that Merlin was definitely the best present he had ever had.

Fin

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Hope you enjoyed it! :)

I'll try to fix the editing errors later. Right now the website refuse to display the text like I want, even when I use html codes.


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